When Your Handed a Lemon...

[cdikland]

About 2 months ago, during the construction of my new office/guitar room, I injured my right hand. No guitar for about 3 weeks. The RH injury got better but the extra exertion on my left hand/arm during this period created a problem there. :shock: Arghhhhh Now what???

It is really hard to sit in this newly constructed room with all my guitars around me and not be able to play. I decided last week to take one of my guitars and tune it to open-D and just practice RH exercises such as those in Pumping Nylon. Very, very boring to say the least but I did manage to keep it up for at least 1/2 hour a day over the past week.

Today, I tried to play with both hands but unfortunately my left arm is still quite sore. Much to my amazement though was how much my RH technique has improved in such a short time. In particular, accuracy and tone although the latter needs more work. I expect that I wont be able to use my left for at least 1-2 weeks but from the results I am getting with these exercises this may well be a blessing...

[BigMac5]

Which exercises from Pumping Nylon were you doing?

[cdikland]

Giulianni 120 RH exercises. Each of these exercises uses the C anf G7 chord but I play them without the LH.

[thraex]

Great!

I keep telling my friends and teachers how good those are!
I guess any RH exercises are good, also Carlevaro's, but since some 18 months ago I decided to do them again every day, to stabolize my hand because I changed to a Brahms guitar and it was so hard to even find the strings, now I do them everyday, I take one whole group every day, i just dont do those double repeated diads exercises only to warm up some times, but the real arpeggios... those are great, can be boring as STennnant says to do only tonic dominant all the time, so open strings, different progressions are nice.

I was at a point when i thought like one of my teachers said, that technique must be done through music and according to its needs, true, so i stopped doing technique, but my hands got unbalanced, even though i could play the music itself, but with effort.

Now i do my first hour of practice technique, RH,LF and a particular tech that I need for my repertoire, LF i just do the exaggeration of movement and slurs, works fantastic also to play relaxed like Pavel Steidl said and in my case helped to my LH be aware of the fretboard without my eyes, for i wanted to play closing my eyes.

Well, i am off the post now!! haha
just wanted to cheer you about keeping those exercises, besides practicing separate hands is the way of the MASTERS haha il learn my RH separatadely
besides when playing i look only to my RH, that is the secret of my new confidence in concerts!
so your injury brought some good things, as everything, there are not completely bad things!

Ricardo

[Travis_Warner]

I have the puming nylon series...and i do these exercises all the time. They work great for right hand flexibility.